لطفا منتظر باشید ...
More Changes
I like my game designs to begin with elaborate concepts and too many features, and then later streamline the game play, only retaining the best parts of the design. I find this process easier than trying to bolt on additional elements later, and overall it has led me to more satisfying game designs. Apart from identifying the most interesting features and the most intuitive rules, an important focus of the continual playing and replaying was to balance the game. Each game should play out differently, but all games should present roughly the same degree of difficulty. Luck should not make a game too easy, nor too difficult. Each of the adventure boards required balancing the flow of events needed to provide an escalating challenge. If events occurred too early the players would be drained of resources and find themselves unable to go on. Key events encouraged the party to move along different tracks, giving them important choices about how to proceed. The game also had to be balanced for the varying numbers of players. Otherwise, it could become substantially easier the more players took part, because they had more resources among them. Or it might become tougher with more players, as each character had to be looked after. Two further thematic challenges arose as testing progressed. First, I wanted to bring Gandalf more fully into the game; and second, I wanted to give the shield tokens a purpose other than merely to measure victory points. Often I find it harder to solve a single design problem than to address two at the same time. A single problem allows many possible solutions and-being a perfectionist-it is difficult for me to identify the single "best" solution. When looking at two problems at once, a common solution often appears more readily. In this case I introduced a Gandalf deck containing powerful cards that the players could buy using the shields.
This also illustrates another important game design principle. Solving a specific design issue should not just address the issue in isolation but should ideally contribute to the overall game play. This differentiates a game fix from a game feature, and of course, games should never use fixes. The Gandalf cards are a nice game feature, because they allow the players more tactical choices and help in balancing the game. Players may decide to keep their shields to achieve a higher score, or "invest" them to gain more powerful resources or overcome an obstacle. And of course, different players may prefer different approaches and have to arrive at a consensus. I had originally conceived the game for three to five players, but as I monitored the results I wondered whether it would play well with just two. I often initially aim for two to four, or three to five players to satisfy the market requirements. When I have a stable design, I then explore whether I can extend the player numbers through minor design changes. Initial test results with the game confirmed that the two-player version was playable, but it was too easy to win. In response, I decided to reduce the number of resource cards given to the two players in Rivendell and Lothlorien. One side effect of all this testing was that the game was being optimized for experienced players, so new players were finding it too difficult. In setting the final variables, I took this into account. Never forget your target audience! For confidentiality reasons, I normally keep testing within my own groups, but this game was so unusual that I needed to confirm once more how the general public would react to it. So we set up separate test sessions, some with game players and some with non-players. Sometimes the non-player groups did better than the game players! So we knew that we had what we wanted.
